


Lovely, Dark, and Deep

by Supertights



Category: Out of the Woods - Taylor Swift (Music Video)
Genre: Feminine Power, Forests, Gen, Gift Fic, Inspired by Music, Magic, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Ordeals, Quests, Symbolism, Wolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-01
Updated: 2017-06-01
Packaged: 2018-11-05 19:39:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11020188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Supertights/pseuds/Supertights
Summary: The woods waited for her, she had only to arrive.





	Lovely, Dark, and Deep

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AlexSeanchai (EllieMurasaki)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllieMurasaki/gifts).



> Thank you to my patient beta [name to be added after reveals].

The witch waited in her dreams, wearing her face and speaking with her voice. It was akin to having a twin but only in sleep. That was not all she dreamed about. She also dreamed of forests thriving with life, the ocean, and an endless white land.  
  
Where she lived there were no beaches or forests or mountains. It was just a small town where adults tried to make money from dusty land and kids got into trouble on the weekends. It had also been a town with a restless spirit after the church shut its doors for the last time and the congregation had to go to the bigger town an hour away if they wanted to pray. For most, the gas was a sacrifice too far.  
  
Some folks had said in her hearing that the town was different now and had been since a strange but elegant lady had come by and set up shop in the empty church for a time. The old lady seemed to know things people needed to know and talked to as many of them as had wanted to talk to her. She’d packed up one night and vanished a few years ago but the town still talked about funny old Dee and her predictions that came true about half the time, just enough to unsettle some folk.  
  
Her mother and grandmother had spent many long hours talking on the phone about how to keep faith in ways that meant something. When they stopped talking about it, the small shrine of remembrance to her daddy had appeared. Life was hard for a while, walking past him every day on the way out the door to school, but they all adjusted and now it was normal to talk to him like he was still around. Her mother lived in the city; the same mother who had left the family when the children were still young. She left to earn enough money to keep them all going after their father had died, a pickup truck t-boning his old Buick on the only intersection in town. The local drunk, passed out at the wheel, was responsible, or irresponsible depending on how you looked at it.  
  
Now, it was another birthday her mom and dad weren’t around for. A package had been delivered to the door by Dan the postman with her mother’s return address on it. That alone made it different from every other year since her dad died. Dan made her sign for it like a real grown-up. “Happy Birthday, Alivia,” he said, tipping his cap and heading to the next house on his route.  
  
Her name had bothered her for a long time and her brother joked that the clerk had spelt it wrong on the birth certificate and that was supposed to be Olivia. Her mother comforted her with the knowledge that she was Alivia and had always been Alivia and would forever be Alivia.  
  
She carried the package into the house and everyone gathered at the table, looking down at it.  
  
“Open it,” said her grandmother, wiping her hands dry with a cloth. “It’s from your mother.”  
  
Alivia tore back the brown paper and another layer of white beneath. Blue shone through the tears in the paper. Such blue like she’d only seen in the sky on the very best of days. Pulling the paper away revealed a folded garment that was soft to touch, like no other fabric she had in her closet.  
  
“It’s like the ocean,” said her younger brother, “the bluest water ever.”  
  
He’d only seen the ocean on television.  
  
“No, sapphires,” said her sister, with covetous eyes. “The bluest sapphires ever.”  
  
Again, television.  
  
“It looks like your father’s eyes and yours.” Her grandmother hugged her. “Read the note.”  
  
Her mother’s writing curled across the card like unfurling leaves and vines. “To my girl on her seventeenth birthday. The world lies before you and it waits, go explore it. Find your true self.”  
  
She lifted it up and held it against her. It felt like nothing she’d felt before, so light. It moved on breezes she couldn’t see. “Can I try it on?” she asked her grandmother who had tears in her eyes.  
  
“Go try it on then,” said the older woman. “But clean yourself first, you can go use my washroom this one time since no one’s bothered to clean the family washroom today.” She looked pointedly at Alivia’s sister who looked away.  
  
In the hall near the stairs up to the bedrooms, photographs of her dad were displayed on a table against the wall. Alivia showed him the dress on the way past.  
  
Her grandmother’s room was like a treasure trove of mysteries. Lots of glass and crystal bowls, gold and silver dishes; each full of interesting objects. It really was no wonder that she kept everyone out. There was even an ancient mirror in the corner, full length and blackened in places. Laying the dress across the bed, she rushed into the adjoining washroom. Bathing quickly from the basin, already full of clean water, she washed her face and hands. Then dabbed her grandmother’s rosemary water on like French perfume and brushed her hair so it shone like wheat before the harvest. The room smelled of incense, sage maybe. Her grandmother sometimes retreated to this sacred space when she needed time to herself.  
  
Alivia wanted the gift to feel special, a real moment before adulthood took hold. Slipping the dress over her head, she felt it slide down her body like water. In the mirror, though, the dress wore her, not the other way around. A simple gold chain with a fake stone pendant hung around her neck, an extravagant gift from her last boyfriend who had nearly killed her when his car spun out on a patch of summer ice as he raced another boy in a faster car.  
  
He’d not been her boyfriend after that. She didn’t know why she still had the necklace but it was pretty and she didn’t waste gifts that were given in love.  
  
She didn’t notice her reflection in the mirror study her curiously.  
  
Twirling once, Alivia closed her eyes, revelling in the moment as the dress swirled around her legs. Opening her eyes again, she saw a beach stretching out on either side of her, white sand that went for miles and before her, the ocean.  
  
Sand squeezed through her toes, cold and wet. She closed her eyes again, opening them quickly. Still an ocean, still a beach, still not her grandmother's bedroom at home. The dress fluttered against her legs now, stirred by the barest breath of wind and yet something else was moving, reaching for her. A sideways glance and she gasped. Vines sprouted from the sand and writhed in the air, budding, and then she was in the middle of a forest. Trees surrounded her from all sides, more vines whipped around like angry snakes, and she pushed forward. She felt eyes on her and her skin crawled.  
  
Day became night as clouds closed in and something howled in the distance.  
  
She began to run.  
  
The forest floor squirmed with vines, thrashing at her heels and trying to trip her. She looked back once and saw them, a pack of wolves in pursuit, teeth gleaming in the moonlight. Her feet caught on a root jutting out of the forest floor and she went down, flailing. With a cry, she looked back again. The wolves were almost on her. Pushing up, she kept going and felt the snap of teeth on the dress, tearing it, and she fell again, twisting awkwardly to land on her back.  
  
Cold. The ground beneath her was bitterly cold and her breath was a plume of steam rising from her mouth as she stood. Wrapping her arms around her body, she studied the frozen landscape. A howl tore the air and they appeared out of nowhere behind her; the wolf pack, now doubled in size and pelting across the ice at her.  
  
She was out of the woods finally, but running across an icy snow field was killing her bare feet. Exhausted, she slowed in order to walk. The wolves stayed at the same distance, still running, though. ‘Strange,’ she thought. Ahead, the ice gave way to the rocky edge of a cliff and she tore the necklace from her neck and cast it away. It spun in the light, catching it and reflecting it back as it arced out into nothing. Why had she done that? She couldn’t fathom it.  
  
The mountainside below transformed into a sea of crashing waves.  
  
Staring at the strange new ocean, she was overcome with lethargy and went over the edge, turning to fall backwards into water that was oddly warm. She hovered beneath the surface, floating comfortably, feeling safe. She wondered, if she opened her mouth would she breath water as easily as a fish?  
  
The water fell away and she was dumped into a dry lakebed. A lightning-blasted tree stood dead in the middle of the cracked earth. It looked familiar and she reached out to touch it.  
  
Icy wind blasted her again, icicles forming on her bare skin as she stood shivering in a winter forest. She felt something deep inside, something she hadn’t felt since the day her mother left home and before that, the day her father died. More recently, the moment her boyfriend’s car spun out and flipped, leaving her with bruises and stitches to explain to her grandmother.  
  
Alivia was angry.  
  
The ice began to fall away and lightning crashed over her head where a storm was brewing fast. Rain turned the earth to mud and her feet slid out from under her, hands disappearing as she tried to stand and then crawl away. The anger billowed inside her heart as she fought to free herself of the mud and reached for something, anything that she could use as leverage.  
  
The vines crept up up her body and bound her even as the rain turned to warm summer light and she was upright like a living statue. Fireflies swarmed around her and a memory surfaced. Her mother, a forest, fireflies. The anger dissipated like a curl of breath from her mouth. “I remember,” she cried.  
  
Then she was falling back onto ice, then into mud, the lake bed, the winter forest, a mountain, an ocean, a burning forest. Each for no more than a few moments before she fell through the walls of each world to the next.  
  
Catching her balance, she began to stand through each world as they continued to spin around her. In the distance, she could see a woman in blue standing on a beach, just as she once had stood on a beach, and she began to walk towards the mystery woman through each wild world until she was on the beach, her dress ruined and gone, lost to snatching vines and the teeth of wolves. She wore no more than a slip of blue and the hardships of her travels on her body. “I’m out of the woods,” she said, not clear on why the words meant anything, “and in the clear.”  
  
The woman on the beach faced the ocean. If she heard, she showed no sign of it. She wore Alivia’s dress, her skin, her hair, and Alivia reached out to touch the woman, to see if she was real.  
  
The witch turned and smiled. It was her, but older, wiser, sadder. “My girl.”  
  
From the forest, the wolves came crashing and she cried out a warning, throwing her body in front of her mother’s, but a familiar hand came down on her shoulder.  
  
“Don’t worry,” said her mother, “they mean us no harm. They came before us and guide us.”  
  
The wolves began to transform into women, young and old, from many nations. Each smiled at her as gently as her mother had. They all wore a dress of blue, some in styles from decades, even centuries past. All were barefoot, blood welling up in scratches on their arms and legs, and wild hair tangled with twigs and leaves. Her grandmother appeared at the back of the pack and pushed through to embrace her.  
  
A shining owl flew from the forest, the trees vanishing behind it, the land turning into dunes. The owl continued to grow until it transformed in an expansion of light and an ageless woman with keen eyes took its place, smiling at Alivia. “Next time you run with us, not in front of us.”  
  
Heart in her mouth, Alivia replied, “Thank you.”  
  
The Goddess nodded and vanished as Alivia fell one last time from the beach onto her bed, her new blue dress intact once more. After a moment, she ran downstairs to show her family.  
  
“You look beautiful, so grown-up,” said her grandmother, who kissed both her cheeks. “Jack, find the polaroid, let’s get a photo for your mom. Then there’s a birthday cake Elena and I baked that needs eating. After that, free time for everyone except Alivia. We’re going for a walk.”  
  
When the two women were alone, she looped her arm through her grandmother’s. Small puffs of dust kicked up from the road with each step they took. “Will you teach me?” she asked, “I’d like to learn.”  
  
Whole worlds were there for her to explore them with ancestors who ran on two legs and four. She didn’t understand how it all worked yet but Alivia wanted to know more about the Goddess from the beach because now that she thought about it, there were signs of deities everywhere in the town. From the boys with the wings painted on their cars, and the wine appreciation club that gathered each month, to her own grandmother’s book club.  
  
Her grandmother patted her arm and smiled, nodding. “I’ll show you enough to get you started, then the journey is yours.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the poem, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost.


End file.
